


Trials Dark on Every Hand

by ishie



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: F/M, Post-Season/Series 01
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-10
Updated: 2014-04-10
Packaged: 2018-01-18 20:35:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1441966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ishie/pseuds/ishie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I don't know why I thought you'd be Oliver," she says.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Trials Dark on Every Hand

**Author's Note:**

  * For [moriann](https://archiveofourown.org/users/moriann/gifts).



> Happy Shipswap! Thanks for asking for such great pairings. I wish I could have written them all for you!
> 
> Title is from the hymn "By and By" / "When Morning Comes". ([The Phoenix Singers version](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAxZb8VnidU))

From the alley, all Felicity can hear is the rumble of earth-movers clearing the debris off a lot a few blocks away from Verdant. She checks over her shoulder out of long habit—nothing and no-one in sight—and lets herself in to the unlit service hallway beneath the club. She's halfway down the second set of stairs before she recognizes the rhythmic clang of metal on metal.

Her groan is just barely louder than her footsteps, but no less heartfelt for it.

"Okay, look," Felicity says, when she reaches the bottom and lets her bag slide from her shoulder to thud on the floor. "I'm not saying I stayed up all night re-reading a bunch of old _Dragonlance_ books while mainlining espresso brownies and a _really_ great California red, but I'm not _not_ saying it either, so if you could cool it with the clanking and the sweating and the grunting for like two min— Oh."

She almost trips over her own bag when she finally comes around to the other side of the breaker boxes and gets a look at the training area. "You're not Oliver."

"Nope," Diggle says. He huffs out a breath that sounds like a laugh as he pushes the bar up and lets it drop nearly to his chest again, and. Okay. This isn't the first time she's seen him working out, but he's—somehow? how??—even more naked than Oliver gets when _he's_ working out, and if _that_ is distracting, then this is— Wow, this is something. 

It's ridiculous, really. She's seen both of them in ludicrously tiny amounts of clothing for how much straining muscular skin they show off, but she's hungover and Diggle keeps bench-pressing what looks like the equivalent of her car, and. Yeah. It's something, all right.

"Uh," she stutters as her brain finishes rebooting. "I don't know why I thought you'd be Oliver."

"Neither do I."

"Yeah." What sparkling conversationalists they are. "Should you be lifting that much without a spotter?"

"Probably not."

There are probably six different lectures on the tip of her tongue—about personal safety and responsibility and not doing things that will maybe traumatize your partners-in-vengeance when they find your cold dead body pinned under an iron bar on a weight bench days and days and days later, maybe, possibly, because things like that could happen—things like that _do_ happen, just happened—but Diggle pushes the bar up one last time and drops it into the cradle with a heavy clank that makes her head start ringing again.

Or maybe that's because the muscles in his arms and torso and thighs are moving under the light when he sits up and reaches for a towel and a bottle of water, or because the sweat that drips down his chest and darkens the waistband of his shorts...

Felicity forgets where she is for just a minute, or seven. Who's counting? _Hangover_. "Uh."

This time, he smirks. Not the big one that makes her want to sign him up for political fundraising newsletters, the one he usually tried not very hard to tuck away when she caught him at it over Oliver's shoulder. This is the little one that makes it look like he's scanning for the nearest exit so he can laugh at her in private without ruining his tough-guy demeanor. Not that she... Never mind. Noises. That's the point. Loud, loud, stabby, hurty, clanky noises. No more noises.

"Are you done?" she says, and winces. "Sorry. I think my social graces are asleep in my bed without me."

Diggle pulls the last weight free from the bar and slides it back onto its rack. "All done."

"You're not going to do the ladder thingy?" There is absolutely not the tiniest shred of disappointment anywhere in or on or near her body. Not one bit.

"I'll leave that to Oliver."

"Not an exhibitionist, huh? Unlike some pe— Okay, what? No. I'm done talking." She's going to have to staple her mouth closed. That's all there is to it.

Diggle doesn't say anything, just keeps wiping sweat off his chest and arms with a thin towel that actually looks kind of grody. She stares at it, hard. Grody, yes. Grody is good. Grody will keep her from doing anything stupid.

"Sorry," she says again, for lack of anything better. 

"You're fine. What are you doing down here this early, anyway?"

A half-dozen things crowd into her head, excuses for why she's on the opposite end of town from her warm bed, why she can't face going in to Queen Consolidated where they won't even let her do anything but stare at her desk while someone pulls her systems apart. Why she's here at all. Why she's been down here every day since Tommy's funeral. 

There's nothing for Felicity to do, really. She keeps coming anyway, sitting by herself in front of the monitors, keeping an eye on things—even though there's no one to use the information. Even though she and Diggle both know Oliver's just waiting for the first chance he can get to slip away. Not that she can blame him, even when she wants to.

"You know. Just, a couple of things I wanted to check on. Things that should be ready to go, you know, when.... _If_."

"Felicity—" Diggle says.

"I like to keep busy!" 

Her voice comes out a little too high-pitched and she swallows it back. She's cried so much in the past few weeks that her face is probably permanently chapped, but it's mostly been in the privacy of her shower, and she's not letting it out. Not here. Not in front of him.

Not like this.

He repeats her name, but Felicity's done with this for right now. She's so tired, and everything hurts, from the top of her head where it feels like a railroad spike is driving its way in to the balls of her feet, everything just _aches_. She shouldn't have come here, that much is obvious. She should stick to her side of town, where people don't even mention the earthquake, or the Queens, unless something pops up on their Facebook feeds or news alerts. 

She pretends to be engrossed in her screens, in the data scrolling past that she's paying no attention to, but she can't miss the sound of Diggle's bare feet on the cement floor. When he stops behind her, she lets herself lean back against him. 

"Look," he says, finally, in a voice she feels more than hears. "it's just going to take some time for things to get back to normal. Before you know it, we'll be back to kicking ass and taking names."

"More like giving names and waiting to hear how the kicking goes."

His hands are warm on her shoulders. It never seems as cold down here as it actually is, until she walks back out out into the world and feels the sun against her skin.

She nudges the mouse to keep the screens from going to sleep and tilts her head back to look up at Diggle, who's looking down at her with an expression that makes her feel like she's intruding on her own life.

"Keep me company for a bit?" she asks, already knowing he'll say yes, like he does every day.

He nods, then gestures over his shoulder. "If that's your gym bag you dropped over there, maybe I'll show you a few more ways to kick Oliver's ass later. I've got some moves you haven't even seen yet."

"I wouldn't be so sure," she mutters, before she can think better of it.

"What?"

"Yeah, uh, so: funny story. You know that red light camera outside your building...?"


End file.
